Taking inspiration from Stephen Lewitt and his book ‘Freakonomics’, I would like to attempt my own take on Freakonomics and here it goes:
People have been saying that recession is bad and it impacts the entire economy and almost no-one can be saved from its impact if it continues for too long. While I completely agree with what everyone has been saying but for some companies there is a positive side to the recession and they tend to actually gain from the so-called recession.
Some clear winners are: electricity providers, DVD sellers/video parlours, chips and salted snack companies and even beverage companies.
People who have been asked to quit their jobs due to the impact of recession would obviously be spending more time at home and what that means is that they would be having lot of free time in their hands besides spending a few hours daily on trying for new jobs. So to pass time, they would either watch TV (lots of it) or go out and buy/rent a DVD for entertainment. This would mean an increase in an electricity bill as well an increase in sale of the DVD seller or the video parlour.
Now when people sitting at home are watching so much of TV/movies, chances are that they would eat something while doing that. They would also eat out of frustration and depression of not having a job. In either cases, the craving for salted food is bound to be higher and so products like chips and other salted snacks would be the options that they would desire. So even in recession, companies like these can be a bit relieved that their household sales may not go down and they may in fact see a reverse trend.
Same is the case with beverages companies and that happens to be the perfect companion to salted food and a movie experience.
So you see recession can also be an opportunity for some…. It all about looking at things from a different perspective rather than following the herd mentality where everyone says that recession is bad for them and so recession is bad for us.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Contacts
Do you have contacts? Although it sounds like a very simple question, but quite often there is more to this simple question than what is seen. What one is trying to ask is that how much clout does one have. This is a question that is asked at various points of time in one’s life in India as lot of work gets done only through ‘contacts’.
But today I will not be talking about those kind of contacts. I would like to talk about the contacts that exist on our mobile phones. Each of us has a number of contacts on our mobile phones. In fact, each and every new mobile model that comes into the market promises more and more space for your contacts. From 100 to 200 to 500 and many more.
I just wonder how many of these contacts do we really contact….. and how often? In fact, the other day I was just going through my long list of contacts as I wanted to clear out some names, with whom there will be no contact or there will be no need to contact. There were some names against which I could not place any face at all nor could I recollect who or what that person had done to be a part of my contact list. Then there were some whose name was ringing a bell in the mind, but it was difficult to recollect their significance in my life. These were the easy ones to remove from the contact list as it was clear that they were not important enough to stay in my contacts list.
The difficult part came after this. As I started scrolling from one name to the other, there were faces, past memories and moments that started coming across me. Each name had a certain story and relevance in my life. Some of these names or contacts were very important in a certain phase of my life and these were the people I used to speak to very often, but as time passed by and college, cities, jobs, and relationships changed, each contact started moving up or down in one’s hierarchy of importance. Some of the regular contacts became once in a while contacts to a need based contact to a contact who just exists on my mobile phone. But these are still contacts, whose name I do not wish to delete as I feel that someday I might call them again and relive some of those old moments.
Till then Facebook will help me keep updated on a lot of them!
But today I will not be talking about those kind of contacts. I would like to talk about the contacts that exist on our mobile phones. Each of us has a number of contacts on our mobile phones. In fact, each and every new mobile model that comes into the market promises more and more space for your contacts. From 100 to 200 to 500 and many more.
I just wonder how many of these contacts do we really contact….. and how often? In fact, the other day I was just going through my long list of contacts as I wanted to clear out some names, with whom there will be no contact or there will be no need to contact. There were some names against which I could not place any face at all nor could I recollect who or what that person had done to be a part of my contact list. Then there were some whose name was ringing a bell in the mind, but it was difficult to recollect their significance in my life. These were the easy ones to remove from the contact list as it was clear that they were not important enough to stay in my contacts list.
The difficult part came after this. As I started scrolling from one name to the other, there were faces, past memories and moments that started coming across me. Each name had a certain story and relevance in my life. Some of these names or contacts were very important in a certain phase of my life and these were the people I used to speak to very often, but as time passed by and college, cities, jobs, and relationships changed, each contact started moving up or down in one’s hierarchy of importance. Some of the regular contacts became once in a while contacts to a need based contact to a contact who just exists on my mobile phone. But these are still contacts, whose name I do not wish to delete as I feel that someday I might call them again and relive some of those old moments.
Till then Facebook will help me keep updated on a lot of them!
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